promoters based in the northeast U.S. were outraged saying that the NWA had fallen asleep on the job and the integrity of the NWA title was no more, so they staged a tourney in Rio Di Janeiro to determine a new world champ under the auspices of the World-Wide Wrestling Federation.

Is it enough to simply claim your organizations champion as a World Champion or does there have to be some merit behind it?

The big 4 professional sports (NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA) claim their champions each year to be world champions, but no teams from other countries play in their respective leagues. So saying they have the best players in the world playing for their league is enough to credit "World Title" status.

In this day and age of professional wrestling your unlikely to ever see inter-promotional events, a title defended over-seas or outside the boundry of the company.

I believe the only way for a company to claim their title is a World Title is to follow these 3 simple rules.

1. Company must have open-door policy for any wrestler from any promotion to participate in a title match
2. Title must be defended on multiple continents
And most importantly . . .
3. Other promotions must recognize the Title as a "World Title"

That's how it basically works for boxing and should also work for the World of Professional Wrestling.

"When I die, I want to die like my grandmother who died peacefully in
<br>her sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in her car."
<br>
<br>"If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten."
<br>George Carlin

Famine wrote:
I believe the only way for a company to claim their title is a World Title is to follow these 3 simple rules.

1. Company must have open-door policy for any wrestler from any promotion to participate in a title match2. Title must be defended on multiple continentsAnd most importantly . . .3. Other promotions must recognize the Title as a "World Title"

I like #2, and think #3 is very good, but I know that there's little chance that #1 would really ever go into effect. Think about it, would you, if you were booking a wrestling company, ever give the title to someone who might bolt to your top competitor? I certainly wouldn't. I'd make sure that I'd have the champ under contract. And its not like champs come from nowhere, either. The time, effort, and money invested in making people percieve a wrestler as championship material makes me think that I'd want to keep them around for the long haul.

I agree an open door policy is roughly impossible, but take a look at how many of the promotions in Japan (mostly smaller indy promotions) had open door policies for the junior heavyweights. The best example of this would be when Lyger was booking the Juniors for New Japan and brought in top talent from a number of promotions. When the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Titles was won by someone outside of New Japan, that only gave the Title more exposure. True, in this day and age of "My company is better than your company," and a chance of the title going into the trash, it would be hard to allow a champion to tour with the title. One of those things you'll never see in the states by any means.

"When I die, I want to die like my grandmother who died peacefully in
<br>her sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in her car."
<br>
<br>"If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten."
<br>George Carlin

I know it's a mark mag, but for me Pro Wrestling Illustrated is the gold standard of world title status. It's the widest read kayfabe press still in circulation. Because "world title status" is actually something that can mean something--- not as though it were an actual sport, but having more to do with the reach and health of the promotion claiming a world title itself--- I like the idea of having an outside source like "the press" (such as PWI is) as the arbiter.

Their logic and arguments about world title status are actually pretty sound, and they're pretty stingy.

It's also interesting that they restored world title status to the NWA title recently, which certainly elevated it in my eyes as something I could even begin to consider taking seriously as a real "world title."

Even with the Japan crossovers and the relatively skilled champs, one can't even begin to consider the same thing for the current AWA title.